The Active badge alerts you to the fact that this is an SUV in Hyundai’s world, or a crossover, or something similar. It’s a huge market these days, both in the UK and Europe, so Hyundai have done the obvious thing. They’ve taken their very competent i20 and turned it into something that looks as if it might be able to cope with a rutted track provided it wasn’t too rough.

They’ve done this by adding skid plates, raising the ride height by 20mm and putting some cladding on the wheelarches. We’re not talking diff locks and low ratios here. But then this is what the market seems to want – something that looks as though it’s a 4x4 yet you don’t have to faff about wondering if this is the time to engage hill descent or worrying about fuel consumption.

Behind what looks suspiciously like a plastic vestige of what bull bars used to look like is a new 1.0-litre engine. That’s not big, but you do get a turbocharger and 99bhp. That could be enough.

The engine is a three-cylinder model with the rather attractive thrum that they produce. It may be small, but it produces peak torque over a good spread, from just 1500rpm up to 4000rpm. So you don’t have to rev the nuts off it to make more than adequate progress. Performance is roughly what the preceding 1.4-litre model delivered. With a smooth five-speed transmission, you can make good progress out on the open road.

Although ride height is up, this is partly compensated by stiffer springing all round. This has the benefit of improving the handling over what it would be but there is still a bit of wallow in the turns, yet the ride can be firm over troubled surfaces. Generally though you can make fairly good progress without any bother. Without any great sense of fun either, but perhaps that’s asking too much.

So the i20 Active does achieve what it set out to do. It actually looks pretty good, drives perfectly well, is very well equipped, very decently built, and seems to manage to be a competent crossover. If the claimed figures of 58.9mpg and 110g/km of CO2 bear any resemblance to reality then those will be further bonuses to ownership.

There’s no great reason to buy one, but no great reason not to. It would be sensible to look at the competition before purchase, things like the Fiat Panda 4x4, Renault Captur or Suzuki Vitara, but in the end it comes down to personal preference. Buying one of these would be a perfectly sensible choice.